"The court vacated roughly $17 million in reasonable-royalty and exemplary damages and a five-year permanent injunction, while affirming a $1 million statutory counterfeiting judgment tied to Dr. Cornell's unauthorized use of the Penuma trademark."
"The opinion is a useful teaching vehicle on the patent/trade-secret interface. It reinforces the familiar rule that ideas placed in the public domain through a patent disclosure cannot be reclaimed as trade secrets."
"No protectable trade secret results from translating a generally known concept from one environment to another environment where both environments present the same problem that is solved by the same solution."
The Federal Circuit overturned a jury verdict and damages award against Texas urologists for misappropriating trade secrets of the Penuma penile implant. Three trade secrets were deemed generally known due to prior patents, while the fourth lost secrecy when emailed without restrictions. The court vacated $17 million in damages and a five-year injunction but upheld a $1 million judgment for trademark counterfeiting. The ruling emphasizes that publicly disclosed ideas cannot be reclaimed as trade secrets and introduces an obviousness rule for trade secrets.
Read at Patently-O
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]